Instead of celebrating a seasonal event, Call of Duty players are speaking out against a new image in the game that many feel has the makings of something that was AI-generated.
As part of Black Ops 6’s Merry Mayhem event, one of the rewards for playing and earning XP is a new loading screen named “Necroclaus.” Seen below, it depicts a Zombified Santa, but the CoD community seems to be in agreement that several things about the image feel off. A quick scan of the image reveals that Zombie Santa’s right hand, on the left side of the picture, appears to have six fingers. This kind of thing is often indicative of images that have used AI to help create it. And while an argument can be made that maybe the “pinky” is actually just rotting flesh falling off, players say there’s more than just that to be concerned about.
“His right hand has six fingers, his left hand is completely off in several ways, and the presents’ ribbons look very off,” one redditor said about the picture. “I can’t even tell which of the two presents the furthest-away ribbon is supposed to be on.”
“My only guess is that this was a tiny thing/tiny task they needed for the S1.5, so they just put an intern on it and gave him a task in the likes of ‘generate a cool loading image that fits with Jingle Hells,’ and then they just took what he made and threw it in without any quality control or anything,” the poster continued.
Using AI to help create or flesh out art is not a new thing, but it’s generally frowned upon by most people, especially those who get paid to create art. And some gamers think that this is just scratching the surface when it comes to AI art in CoD.
“With the sheer amount of calling cards in the game I’m surprised nobody figured that they’ve been using AI for the past few years,” another reply said. “Some of the cards are probably by an artist but I bet most of them aren’t.”
While the sixth finger will go unnoticed by many, and others won’t even care, the picture is enough to generate negative discussion and furor rather than players just enjoying the game’s new content—and that’s never a good thing.
